cw: descriptions of mental illness + suffering

My sadness no longer belongs to me. 

It has become a consumer good. A fetish. A commodity that companies leverage to deviously rake in profit. 

It is no longer just a facet of my identity, but rather a label that has been nonconsensually plastered onto me. Mental illness is not an illness anymore—it is a marketing tool. Capitalism has officially made my depression desirable, mental health is now #relatable. Just the other day I saw a “sad girl starter pack” playlist from Spotify. What a hellscape we live in. 

Businesses are quickly re-illustrating their brands to be “for the sad girls” or “for the anxious girls” in a cunning attempt to appeal to a vast demographic on the internet. I must say, they’re clever for doing so, but such cleverness takes a toll on me: 

I have lost autonomy over my own pain. It is stolen from me and stealthily repackaged into a product to pander.

To be clear, this is not a dig at anyone who has succumbed to the tenacious and scheming efforts of these companies. God knows how many times I’ve done so myself. There is some solace, in the grand scheme of things, to see such pain be recognized by huge conglomerates. In a sick and twisted way, it’s almost validating. 

But still, I fear for the girls who will fall again and again into the insidious trap of consumerism and unwillingly trade off a heart-wrenching piece of their life for some overpriced sad girl face mask. 

This is not acceptance or liberation. They have taken my suffering from me and spun it into a good that they can sell BACK TO ME. Once again, I am taken for profit. Once again, I am being used as a commodity. This time, it is not the exploitation of my body, but they have clawed their way through into the deepest depths of my mind to exploit my pain.

Yet, this is not the worst of it.

Although this personal pain is fetishized, I am not able to express my pain. I cannot exist in pain. Nobody actually wants to see the real, grimy, miserable me. That pain and sadness can only exist as a glorified y2k pink baby tee that reads “I’M DEPRESSED LOL” in black screen print. 

The truth is these companies do not care about you. Do not let them fool you, they do not care about the strings of sleepless nights, the days I’ve slaved away in agony, the weeks that are so unbearably suffocating that I can hardly move from the corner of my bed. Because that side of my mental decay is gross and unmarketable.  

They do not care about the days that I am too anxious to eat, the nights spent clutching my own body like a rag doll on my bathroom floor. They do not care and they will not. Because these things are too vulgar to be repackaged into a presentable commodity. 

What these money hungry companies can do is sell caffeinated tea for $12 and claim to empower all the tired girls out there!!! Who’s tired? I fucking am! Forget about the skyrocketing suicide rates and ongoing pandemic of widespread adversity, LET’S MARKET BABY!!! Let’s make teenage girls (not boys though, because we don’t care about men’s mental health until June) consume watered down versions of their darkest times so they will finally accept themselves as desirable!!!!

I’m angry. I am angry and hurt that I have lost the autonomy of something that is supposed to only be mine. I feel patronized. I feel invalidated. I feel reduced to nothing more than something to trade for monetary value. I feel like a fish gaping at a worm on a hook that’s swinging in front of my face, except the fisherman is corporate America trying to lure me in by taking advantage of my most intimate struggle. 

At the end of the day, I think it is naive for me to hope that this kind of commodification will stop. I know that as long as capitalism exists, anything and everything will be turned for profit. 

I just pray that we will stop falling for such insincerity.